The latest Boeing and aerospace news, including updates about the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, 747-8 and 737, Airbus A380 and A350, the anticipated Boeing 797 and Boeing jobs and layoffs

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..

Boeing will bid 767-based tanker

Boeing will propose a 767-based Air Force aerial refueling tanker on May 10, the company announced Thursday.

“Having supplied tankers to the Air Force for the past 60 years, Boeing has drawn on its unmatched aerial-refueling experience to thoroughly review and evaluate the KC-X (tanker) solicitation issued by the Air Force,” Dennis Muilenburg, president and chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, said in a news release. “We respect and understand the KC-X requirements, and appreciate the importance of this program for the United States and its warfighters. We intend to bid for the honor to work with our Air Force customer to replace the existing fleet of KC-135 aircraft with a new-generation, multi-role tanker in a fair and transparent acquisition process.”

The announcement, coming a week after the Air Force released its final tanker request for proposals, contains two bits of unsurprising news: That Boeing will bid and that it will offer a 767-based tanker instead of its larger 777-based one. The Air Force’s request clearly favors the smaller plane.

Boeing said it “studied the mission requirements closely to determine the optimal airframe size that would deliver the most capability for the lowest cost to own and operate. The result was the NewGen Tanker, a widebody, multi-mission aircraft based on the proven Boeing 767 commercial aircraft, updated with the latest and most advanced technology and capable of fulfilling the Air Force’s needs for transport of fuel, cargo, passengers and patients.”

The bigger question is whether a competing Northrop Grumman-EADS team will bid. Before the Air Force released its final request, Northrop officials said they wouldn’t bid without conditions they saw as favoring the 767-based tanker over their Airbus A330-based plane.

The final request appears not to have changed those criteria.

“Northrop Grumman continues to work toward a bid/no-bid decision through a thorough analysis of the final RFP and discussions with our tanker teammates,” Northrop spokesman Randy Belote said Thursday. “We will announce our decision when the review is completed.”

Boeing said it chose the “NewGen” name because the tanker “includes several state-of-the-art systems to meet the demanding mission requirements of the future.” Specifically, it said the tanker would have:

A digital flight deck with electronic displays taken from the 787 Dreamliner, showing altitude, navigation, engine indication and crew-alerting information on screens 75 percent larger than on a commercial A330;

And a new-generation fly-by-wire boom with an expanded refueling envelope and increased fuel offload rate.

Boeing took several shots at its competition, saying:

It “is the only team in the KC-X competition that has invented, manufactured and delivered combat-tested aerial refueling booms,” although an EADS A330-based tanker has refueled jets using its boom;

Its tanker “will be controlled by the aircrew, which has unrestricted access to the full flight envelope for threat avoidance at any time, rather than allowing computer software to limit combat maneuverability” (a criticism of the Airbus-based tanker);

It will take “a low-risk approach to manufacturing that relies on existing Boeing facilities in Washington state and Kansas as well as U.S. suppliers throughout the nation, with decades of experience delivering dependable military tanker and derivative aircraft” (the Northrop-EADS tanker would come from an as-yet unbuilt assembly site in Mobile, Ala.);

Its tanker is “more cost-effective to own and operate than the larger, heavier Airbus airplane” and so “will save American taxpayers more than $10 billion in fuel costs over its 40-year service life because it burns 24 percent less fuel”;

Its tanker “will support substantially more jobs in the United States than an Airbus A330 tanker that is designed and largely manufactured in Europe.”

Responding to Boeing’s statements, Belote said: “The world’s military market continues to speak loudest about which tanker is the most capable and is the best value with the KC-45’s sister (Airbus) tanker beating the Boeing 767 tanker in the last five worldwide competitions.”

Along with its announcement Thursday, Boeing released a new tanker video and images.

“The NewGen Tanker will draw on the experience and talents of an integrated U.S. Tanker Team, including the best of our Boeing defense and commercial businesses and our nationwide supplier network,” Jim Albaugh, president and chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in the release. “It’s a proven team and existing infrastructure that is ready to deliver these NewGen Tankers on Day One.”

International Association of Machinists District 751 leaders agreed with that sentiment in a statement on the union’s Web site.

Boeing’s NewGen tanker is better for America’s warfighters, taxpayers and economy, and should be the obvious choice for the U.S. Air Force. It’s also the common-sense solution, because the planes would be built in existing factories by our highly skilled and experienced union workers.

We were particularly pleased by Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh this week, when he promised that our members in Everett, and our brothers and sisters in Wichita, would be getting more work on the tanker than originally anticipated. Obviously, that’s good for us, and for our Puget Sound communities. We believe it is good for America, too, because we know that when the world’s best aerospace workers are given a challenge, they deliver a product on time, and within budget. Just ask the Navy how we did with the P-8 Poseidon.

This union is fully committed in support of Boeing’s bid to provide all 179 tankers. We are actively working on Boeing’s behalf, and we stand ready to build America’s new-generation tanker here in Puget Sound, just as our union forbearers built the KC-135s some 50 years ago.

In a joint statement Thursday, U.S. Tanker 2010 Coalition Governors Chris Gregoire of Washington, John Baldacci of Maine, Chet Culver of Iowa, Gary Herbert of Utah, Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, Mark Parkinson of Kansas and Jodi Rell from Connecticut said:

The 767 is a proven model, built at facilities with the world’s best workforce, and is more efficient than any model that will be proposed by its competitors. This announcement confirms what the members of the U.S. Tanker 2010 Coalition have been saying — the Boeing proposal will give our men and women in the military the best tankers at the fairest price to the taxpayer, and will create the most jobs here in America.

Boeing has a history of delivering to the Air Force top quality tankers with incredibly long useful lives. At this time, when we need jobs in this country so badly, buying tankers from a proven vendor that will create or retain over 40,000 America jobs simply makes sense.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..